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Robot and Monster Review/Transcript
(Shows Robot and Monster screaming as their kitchen burns up, Monster flings Robot off him and grabs his tongue) Marf: 'Marf... ''(Intro) 'Announcer: '''Coming up next...it's the bacon-loving duo, ''Robot and Monster! Right here on Nicktoons! And they said that Seinfeld ''was the show about nothing! Back when this thing was on, I got ''countless ''requests to review ''Robot and Monster. It was almost on the volume of requests that I got for Breadwinners. Although, I may be conflating that a little bit with Robotomy, another show that was on around the same time which I also heard was pretty terrible. And you know what? If I did review this show back during the day, it-it probably would have been one of the angry ones. Every so often you come across one of those shows that seems specifically ''engineered to piss you off. At this point you probably know that I have certain pet peeves when it comes to animation, and this one basically ticks them all off. Well, what's this show about? It's about Eddy and Ed, but far less funny, less quotable, less nomadic, and just generally less everything. If that sounds harsh, it's not. It's the most generous view of this show I could give. The "asshole jerk and the idiot pair up to go on shenanigans" is one of the most overused premises for a cartoon. '''Especially '''on Nickelodeon. At least with ''Fanboy and Chum Chum ''we have two idiots, and with ''The Mighty B!, both of them were in the same character. But in the early 2010s, these things were as popular as Scooby-Doo ''clones were in the seventies. Not all of them are bad, but it was a dynamic that was quickly overstaying its welcome. Technically speaking, ''Adventure Time ''does this dynamic, as does ''Regular Show, as does Gumball, as does Rick and Morty. The best of these all though however was probably Dan Vs., and that's a major problem here. You see, ''Dan Vs. ''had this thing where the titular character was voiced by Curtis Armstrong...using the exact same voice. So ''Dan Vs. ''was a show about Curtis Armstrong being the only sane person in a world of insanity, with an idiot tagging along. ''Robot and Monster ''is a show about Curtis Armstrong being the only sane person in a world of insanity with an idiot tagging along. '''Dan: '''What?! I hate Quebec! I hate it! I hate it! '''I hate it! I HATE IT!!!!! Are you starting to see why this little thing peeves me off so much? I-it's not just a laziness thing, it's that the same actor is usually thrown into the same exact role over and over and over again, to the point where they're usually playing the same exact character. Now, here's the unfortunate thing: while Robot and Monster ''was in production before ''Dan Vs., Dan Vs. ''beat ''Robot and Monster ''to the punch by over a year. It's kinda the animation equivalent of ''Bubsy 3D; it was trying to do something that no one had ever done before, that may have been something technically impressive, but all of a sudden here comes Super Mario 64 ''and ''Crash Bandicoot, and goodbye to any hopes except being a laughing stock. The only difference is that Robot and Monster ''could have never been anything ''but ''cliche, and instead ended up looking like a shameful ripoff of ''Dan Vs. ''down to having the same exact voice actor. In any case, anything that ''Robot and Monster ''could have done ''was done by Dan Vs. ''and it was done a hundred times better. Because this show is '''not funny'. This show isn't much of anything to tell the truth except annoyance. It even goes down to the theme song. (Plays clips of the theme song) It sounds incredibly annoying. But it has a problem that I haven't heard in any ''other theme song ever. Like, in literally any theme song that I've ever heard, even the worst of them of all time. But this theme song has a problem that I have not heard in another theme song ever. Like...in literally. The theme song to ''Robot and Monster ''is badly mixed. You can't hear the lyrics, because there are fully sound effects on top of them. So ''Robot and Monster ''is about two characters...a robot named Monster, and a monster named Robot, actually no uh, the monster is named Monster and the robot is named Robot because of course they are. They work in a blinking lights factory and they have a love of bacon. Cause, you know, you can't have one of the most formulaic cartoons of all time, if the characters don't have one single food obsession. But if things couldn't get any more derivative, ''Eddsworld ''had a bit of a thing about bacon. '''Tord: '''Nooooo! '''Edd: '''So what? There's probably more in the kitchen anyway. '''Tord: '''No! That was the last piece in the house! '''Edd: '''Last pi...'last piece?! I'll kill you!' I'm not saying that this show ripped off an independent animator who died only a few months before this show came out. I'm just saying it looks that way. And the only thing that they could have ever risen to was just being derivative. Robot himself does not have much of a personality, he is kind of a schemer, kind of the inventor, but it's such a weak personality that it's ''barely ''present. He often slips into more of the Squidward role; the world beats down on him because he's not obliviously stupid like everyone else in the world. The worst factor of this has to be his family, ''especially ''his brother. When I started watching this show, I was bored. This show had a harder time keeping my attention than any other Nicktoon, including ''Doug ''and ''T.U.F.F. Puppy. The quality of the writing here is so banal, that it should have been placed on Nick Jr. I am not kidding! The jokes are that ''incredibly forced and weak, and the humor this show uses is much more in sync with ''Dora the Explorer ''than ''Spongebob Squarepants. Anyway, I was bored until we got the first Garth episode. Then, I was enraged. First of all the fact that Robot's ''OLDER ''brother is named Garth tells you everything that you need to know. H-H-How do I wanna describe this? "Yeah, after we had the first kid we kinda ran out of names for the second one, uh, so we just decided to name him 'Human.'" Everything always goes right for Garth because he's Garth, and everything goes wrong for Robot because he's Robot. And because everything goes right for Garth, he is an asshole. It's kinda like Squidward and Squilliam in a way. The only difference is that in Squilliam episodes, it's Squidward that digs himself deeper and deeper. Squidward never needed ''to claim that he had a five-star restaurant or a marching band. In this show, it's usually fate or Monster pushing these two into competition. In the first major Garth episode, Monster is the one who decides to invite Garth over, leading Garth to buy their house. Monster's solution is to be incredibly kind to Garth. I hate Monster. I really hate this stupid pile of puke. He makes Patrick Star look like a Nobel Prize winning scientist. And that's in Patrick's bad appearances. Monster is incredibly stupid. That is his personality. And I guess, liking bacon like everyone else in this show. And this show has ''all ''of the hallmarks of bad writing that comes with stupid characters. The plot moves wherever the writers want it to because they have a character who breaks shit for no reason. He ends up being the moral center of the jerk, despite having no real morals, hurting everyone else and simply not caring! All of the humor amounts to either him getting hurt or him hurting others. He says the wrong thing at the absolute worst time, every time to force in conflict that doesn't need to be there. Even the animation for this looks low-budget. I'm not asking for like, fur on Monster or anything, but I'd prefer it if he looked like something more than a pillow cushion. This is pretty low on the 3D animation totem pole. It's not the worst of them all but it's pretty damn close. ''Robot and Monster ''masks it with an admittedly nice palette, but it's clear that there's no budget here, and there lacks much of an art direction. Look at all the unique designs for monsters that came out of ''Aaahh!!! Real Monsters ''or even ''Monsters Inc. As for robots, we've got so many more pieces of media to call back from. Like the movie Robots ''or ''Meet the Robinsons. There is just nothing appealing here. The characters look exactly like the merchandise they were probably planning to sell, and that tells you everything that you need to know. The show feels like it was designed in a rock tumbler. Absolutely nothing about it comes together. In a good show, all of the pieces are supposed to play off each other very well. But no, with these characters and this humor, it just doesn't work. With the attempts at humor, there is no room for any kind of storytelling. And the concept? What the hell even is the concept of the show? "Robots and monsters come together over their love of bacon"! That is not a concept, that is a game of Mad Libs. No, no, this show is one of the worst. I-it's probably not my least favorite Nicktoon ever, but it's definitely in the bottom ten. Fanboy and Chum Chum, All Grown Up!, even Planet Sheen. They're all better than whatever the hell this is. Avoid it like the plague. There is a reason this show was made available with Nickelodeon's Noggin app. If you don't know, Noggin is essentially the Nick Jr. equivalent of the Nicktoons Network. It's a channel that plays nothing but preschool ''shows. And to be 'brutally 'honest, this show is even behind its peers there. Shows like ''Little Bear, The Backyardigans, Oswald, and Ni Hao, Kai-Lan ''have more talent and skill in ''one ''episode than this show had for its '''entire run'. 'Announcer: '''Next on Nickelodeon, it's- ''(Shows clip of the 2012 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles theme song) (There is no end credits theme this time, but instead an audio clip from Dan Vs.) 'Chris: '''Hey, did I ever tell you about him? '''Dan: '''No one wants to hear your boring story. '''Chris: '...It was a hundred years ago- '''Dan: '''So when I say "no one wants to hear your boring story," what do you hear? Category:Nick-o-Rama Category:Transcripts